Havana, May 18 (RHC)-- U.S. authorities have denied entry visas to one of the young Cuban teams who were to participate in the finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest.

Sponsored by IBM, and under the auspices of the Association for Computing Machinery, the contest is an annual multi-tiered competitive programming competition among the universities of the world. 

Two Cuban teams were to participate in the 2017 world finals, to be held May 20th in Rapid City, South Dakota, hosted by South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Participants in this year's competition include teams of computer programmers, representing universities from 44 nations.

U.S. authorities denied entry visas to the Cuban team representing the University of Pinar del Río. The country will then be represented by just one team from the University of Havana. 

University professor Dovier Antonio Ripoll, contest director for the Caribbean region, denounced that the U.S. stance is further evidence that Washington is still reluctant to allow full academic exchanges between the two nations.